


The Player

by The Stephanois (ballantine)



Series: freedom [2]
Category: Little Women (2019)
Genre: Other, Pining, Plans For The Future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:42:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22381276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballantine/pseuds/The%20Stephanois
Summary: On Tuesdays they might be pirates; Thursdays it was knights. Countless templates for his manhood but none of them permanent. None of them a life sentence. Their only commonality was Jo by his side.
Relationships: Theodore Laurence/Josephine March
Series: freedom [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1611067
Comments: 16
Kudos: 120





	The Player

He couldn't remember what they were arguing about the day he realized she was his one and only. It had something to do with college? That's what they had been talking about in the beginning, at any rate.

They were lying on the edge of the woods in their customary positions, their long legs stretched out and occasionally brushing, Laurie on his back with his eyes half-closed, Jo propped up on her elbows. They had passed many a hot summer afternoon in such a way. They would stay out there until his hair was damp at the temples and perspiration shone on her bronzing forehead.

The day they fought, she started talking about the future. She often did this, but the nature of her idle dreams were usually different. Gone were the wild possibilities that blossomed in the early days of their friendship –

On Tuesdays they might be pirates; Thursdays it was knights. Countless templates for his manhood but none of them permanent. None of them a life sentence. Their only commonality was Jo by his side; he thought he'd be anything, do anything, if only he knew she'd be there too.

“You be the wounded soldier, Teddy. I'll be the noble Sawbones.”

Oh, yes, he longed to say to her, even back then: cut me open. Let me bleed and prove my commitment to you.

But Jo no longer talked of them running off to be bandits or carnival barkers; now she talked about college for him and travel for herself. His eyelids lifted and he craned his neck to look at her, but she avoided his gaze.

Feeling rather sore about it, he turned away as well.

“If you abandon me, I will become a dissolute rake,” he said to the sky and towering trees. “Jo, I swear I will. Europe will have never seen a more useless gadabout.”

The vicious look she threw him was part impatience and all outrage; he knew one of her favorite character archetypes was the gallivanting rich. All sorts of outrageous plot twists were made possible due to their lax morals and deep pockets.

“Everyone says I have to be realistic,” she said lowly.

Balderdash. “No one says that except your aunt. Marmee's never asked that of you, and I think Meg gave up long ago.”

“Okay,” she said, flopping dramatically onto her back and crooking an arm over her eyes. He looked at her, waiting, and she continued, “Making plans is too hard. You give it a try, Teddy – tell me of our future.”

His wishes for the future were always too ill-defined to try to put into words. He could barely think beyond the next few moments and the heady desire to tug her arm away from her face and lace their fingers together.

He made a small discontented noise. Under the shadow of her arm, her mouth curled into a smug smile.

“See, it's hard, isn't it? Making plans.”

“Maybe give me longer than ten seconds, and I'll manage something.” He elbowed her lightly; she elbowed him back. A small battle ensued and in the subsequent armistice they left their arms where they'd fallen, pressed together.

Laurie shut his eyes against the afternoon sun, red bleeding through and pressing in on his thoughts. He was very hot.

“I don't see why we couldn't go together,” he said into that expectant hazy redness. He felt her go rigid all over, her arm and leg no longer obligingly resting against his own. He said hastily, “To Europe, I mean. We could travel and have a grand adventure like you always talked about.”

“Like _I_ always talked about? You mean you'll get kidnapped by an unscrupulous French marquis and I'll have to mount a daring rescue?” She sounded mostly normal. Perhaps he'd imagined her flinch.

“I'd do my best to make myself an attractive target,” he offered. “I can flirt quite well in French.”

“Anyone can flirt in French, that's just how the language sounds. Amy is positively nauseating when she practices.”

Complaining about her sister was definitely a sign of normalcy. “So it's settled, then,” he said, pleased. “We're going to Europe together.”

She groaned. “Teddy! That's not a plan.”

“It's enough of one,” he objected. _It's you and me, what more could we need?_

“Not even close.”

She rolled over onto her stomach and started picking grass. He turned his head and watched. Her long fingers were covered in ink stains, and he wondered what she worked on that morning before he came calling.

“What would I do for money?” she asked eventually.

“I've got money,” he said dismissively, but he knew the words were a misstep as soon as they left his foolish mouth. She shook her head, eyes narrow and fixed off elsewhere, anywhere but on him. He tried again, “You could submit stories to the papers in London.”

“Maybe,” she said, but she didn't sound convinced.

He felt suddenly quite desperate for her to agree, to roll over and energetically take up the role of director again. He _didn't_ have any good ideas for what they should do; that wasn't his role in their partnership, and she knew it.

“You possess a tempestuous heart, Teddy,” she declared one day up in the attic not too long ago. “You were made for the Theater.” His head against her knee. Her hands in his hair, combing it back. He liked best the days where she touched him with such unthinking ease. Surely she knew then that he belonged to her.

Meg liked to tease them and say Jo tended him like one of the dolls she never had any interest in as a child, but Laurie didn't mind. It was a reciprocal tending, after all – he had as much a hand in her wardrobe as she had in his habits. (One of these days he was going to make his tailor weep in frustration with Laurie's stubborn insistence on buying neckties and waistcoats that were so ill-suited to his coloring.)

And why shouldn't it always be like that between them? Why get bogged down in such tedious notions like money and the expectations of others when they could be happy, he knows they would be _happy_. He didn't have a plan, or any real ideas. But still he wanted to clasp her hand in his and curl close together. He wanted to press his lips to her ear and beg her to trust the idea of freedom.

As much as he knew anything in this world, he knew he loved her. He knew if they just held on and didn't listen to anybody, they could have it. Freedom, together.

His way of being a boy was a source of dissatisfaction for everyone in his life until Jo discovered him – he was too moody, too soft, too flighty. But everything deemed inadequate by the young men in the social clubs and schools was a source of delight to Jo. She never took issue with how he felt – that he felt at all – but only what he did with it.

And she was a fine director – impatient, perhaps, and rather dictatorial, but he trusted her vision. She convinced him life as a man was not destined to be long, boring, and cold; it could be full of light and laughter. And when it wasn't, when he had to go out into the world with a necktie strangling his throat and a hat weighing his head down – he could tell himself it was just like playing a part in one of her plays.

He'd rather be a player on her stage than a respectable gentleman in any society.


End file.
